Zaiwa language

Zaiwa
Zaiwa
Tsaiwa, Tsaiva
Pronunciation	IPA: [tsau³¹va⁵¹]
Native to	China, Burma
Native speakers	150,000 (2021)
Language family	Sino-Tibetan ( Lolo–Burmese Burmish Maruic Zaiwa; ; ; ;
Language codes
ISO 639-3	atb
Glottolog	zaiw1241

Zaiwa (autonym: tsau³¹va⁵¹; 载瓦;

Jingpo. Zaiwa may be spelled 'Tsaiva' or 'Tsaiwa', and Atsi may be spelled 'Aci', 'Aji', 'Atshi', 'Atzi' or 'Azi'. Other names include Atsi-Maru, Szi and Xiaoshanhua.^[1] Pela (Bola), with 400 speakers, was once classified as a dialect. From the 1950s Zaiwa was written using the Roman script. A Gospel of Mark was published in Zaiwa in 1938 in the Fraser alphabet and in 1951 in the Roman script.^[2]^[3]

Distribution

There are more than 70,000 Zaiwa speakers in Yunnan, China, including in:[4]

Bangwa (邦瓦), Longchuan County, Dehong Prefecture
Zhanxi (盏西), Yingjiang County, Dehong Prefecture
Xishan (西山), Mangshi, Dehong Prefecture

The Ethnologue lists Bengwa, Longzhun and Tingzhu as dialects.^{[citation needed]}

In Myanmar, the Sadon (Sadung) dialect is the standard variety.^[5]

Phonology

Consonants

Zaiwa has the following consonant sounds:^[6]

		Labial		Dental/ Alveolar		Palatal	Velar
		plain	pal.	plain	sib.	Palatal	plain	pal.
Plosive/ Affricate	voiceless	p	pʲ	t	t͡s̪	t͡ʃ	k	kʲ
Plosive/ Affricate	aspirated	pʰ	pʰʲ	tʰ	t͡s̪ʰ	t͡ʃʰ	kʰ	kʰʲ
Fricative	voiceless	f			s̪	ʃ	x	xʲ
Fricative	voiced	v				ʒ
Nasal		m	mʲ	n			ŋ	ŋʲ
Approximant		w		l		j

Vowels

Zaiwa distinguishes between tense throat and lax throat vowel sounds:

	Front		Central		Back
	lax	tense	lax	tense	lax	tense
Close	i	i			u	u
Mid	ɛ	ɛ	ə	ə	ɔ	ɔ
Open			a	a
Syllabic			ɹ̩	ɹ̩

Tones

Zaiwa has five tones. Three of these five tones are in unchecked syllables and the remaining two are in checked syllables.^[3] The tones are distinguished through a numbering system of one to five; one being the lowest pitch and five the highest pitch.^[7]

References

^ ^a ^b Zaiwa at Ethnologue (26th ed., 2023)
^ Marku Mau Sau (The Gospel According to St. Mark in Atsi). British & Foreign Bible Society, Burma Agency. 1951.
^ ^a ^b "Zaiwa". Ethnologue. Retrieved 2017-07-23.
^ Xu, Xijian 徐悉艰; Xu, Guizhen 徐桂珍, Jǐngpǒzú Zàiwǎyǔ jiǎnzhì 景颇族载瓦语简志 (in Chinese)
^ Yabu (1982), p. ^{[page needed]}.
^ Zhu, Yanhua (2017). "Zaiwa". In Graham Thurgood; Randy J. LaPolla (eds.). The Sino-Tibetan Languages (2nd ed.). London & New York: Routledge. pp. 877–884.
^ Lustig (2010), p. ^{[page needed]}.